Taekwondo - Enhancing Decision Making with Eye Tracking

Insights from Former Olympic Fighter and Coach

This is the future…if you want to improve your decision making eye tracking will help - Former Olympic Taekwondo Fighter and Coach

Headline

Think about how many decisions you make during a performance and how much of an impact they have on either your success or failure. Now think about what you do to understand and improve this area of your performance. Despite it being widely agreed that upwards if 80-90% of the information you need to make decisions comes through your visual system, it is an area that still does not get enough focus. How much focus do you place on the visual system in training or warming up?

Applications

Eye tracking works perfectly in this setting and reveal insights into approaches taken by attacking or defensive fighters. Interestingly a common practice engaged in by attacking fighters is largely fixating on the body pad as that is their target to aim for. This strategy does allow for more accurate contact from both a kick and a punch. If this is the sole focus however, there are some vital pieces of information missed. More defensive fighters, tend to have a three-fixation track of body, hip knee and back up again. This allows them to predict what their opponent is about to do and adapt accordingly. Engaging in such practice from either a fighter or coach perspective is a game changer and will allow for even more accurate feedback for development.